Turnabout Is Fair Play
by Sinnatious
Summary: NiouYagyuu and TezRyo. Yagyuu and Tezuka meet for tea and discuss their respective significant others...or do they?


Disclaimer: Tenipuri and its character are the property of Konomi, this fiction was produced purely for enjoyment.

Warnings: Implied shonen ai, language.

Author's Note: There must be a hundred of these sorts of fics out there already. Let us make it one hundred and one.

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**Turnabout Is Fair Play**

By Sinnatious

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The coffee shop had a quaint air about it – the furniture was universally wooden, and the walls decorated with watercolour impressions. The clientele were, by and large, nervous businessmen hunched over their laptops; university students seeking a place for some quiet conversation; and on that unique occasion, a lone middle school student with straight brown hair parted at the side, a pair of oval wire-framed glasses, and a book held aloft in his left hand. The right occasionally reached for a teacup – china, with a modest blue design around the edges – to take a small sip of a steaming, fragrant brew.

A jingling bell heralded the arrival of a new customer – another student with side-parted brown hair and glasses, though these spectacles were frameless and the hair didn't sit flat. After a quick survey of the restaurant he strode over to the table by the window.

Tezuka stilled by the chair and paused at length, as though uncertain whether it was permissible to sit down. Eventually, he cleared his throat. "Yagyuu."

The book snapped shut. "Tezuka, hello."

He took his seat. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."

Yagyuu just shook his head politely. "I just went ahead and ordered. Hope you don't mind." He signalled the waitress, who hurried over at once – the sight of two well-groomed middle school students amidst all the tired businessmen was a breath of fresh air. Tezuka placed his order – one Earl Grey – before turning his attention to the Rikkai senior.

"Why is it that you wanted to meet?" he asked, cutting straight to the chase as soon as the pleasantries were out the way.

Yagyuu searched through the satchel he'd brought with him, and then wordlessly handed over a brown paper bag. Curiously, Tezuka opened it, withdrawing a pale lavender sleeve.

"It is yours, isn't it?" he asked coolly.

Tezuka nodded, carefully returning the shirt to the bag, and cleared his throat. "I thought Echizen stole it."

"I believe Niou stole it from Echizen," Yagyuu explained succinctly, taking a brief sip of tea.

"Oh." An awkward silence lingered in the air. "Thank you for taking the trouble to return it."

"Not at all." The words were polite, but the Rikkai senior's expression didn't change. "I should apologise to you. Niou has not been a particularly positive influence – it appears to be making your life difficult."

Tezuka's lips twitched slightly. "…You don't need to apologise on his behalf. And Echizen is not so easily influenced."

The teacup settled back in the saucer. "That is true. It's just that I heard a disturbing account that after that time Niou impersonated you at the Nationals he and Echizen tried to put on a bit of a display in front of-"

"It's in the past," Tezuka said, a little too quickly.

"Of course," Yagyuu continued smoothly. "I'm sorry to have brought it up."

"It's just teasing. I shouldn't let it bother me." The captain _did_ look bothered, however.

"The teasing works – that's why they keep doing it," Yagyuu pointed out nonchalantly.

Tezuka didn't comment. They sat there in silence for a couple of minutes. The Earl Grey arrived, and Tezuka thanked the waitress. Eventually, he said, "I'm grateful that you went to the trouble of returning my shirt, but if you don't mind me asking, how did you get my number?"

"I apologise for the presumption. I acquired it from Niou, who I can only assume acquired it from Echizen." Yagyuu pushed his glasses against the bridge of his nose. "Much like your shirt."

"Ah." Tezuka didn't say anything else. They fell into an uncomfortable silence, absorbed in their tea.

Eventually, Yagyuu politely inquired, "How is life at Seigaku?"

"The tennis season is over, so it's been rather quiet. Rikkai?"

"We just finished midterms."

"Did they go well?"

The Rikkai senior took a long sip and held the cup in his hands, glaring faintly into its depths. "I was actually out sick."

Tezuka didn't have anything to say to that, which was just as well as Yagyuu wasn't finished.

"Niou sat them all in my place."

"…But didn't he have his own exams to sit?"

"He made me sit his make-up tests in his place when I got back. He impersonated me for an entire week." Yagyuu set his cup down a little harshly on the saucer; it rattled, and several of the patrons glanced over.

Tezuka waited, but when it looked like the Rikkai senior wasn't going to elaborate further, he said, "…It must have been rather frustrating."

"It was honestly a little impressive. It takes a lot of effort to keep up the act that long, but I find it's difficult to appreciate it when I'm trying to explain the bizarre shifts in my grades to my teachers. It's a shame he can't apply that diligence elsewhere."

Tezuka nodded at that point, then caught himself and seemed embarrassed. "I'm sorry… I do understand. Echizen can be similar in that regard."

"Is that so?"

Tezuka hesitated, fishing for the appropriate wording. "It can be trying when I have a lot of responsibilities, but he's more interested in…" He trailed off uncertainly.

"Lazing around?" Yagyuu quipped, a slightly cutting clip to his voice. "Slacking off?"

The captain was visibly reluctant to admit it. "I just wish he'd take his studies a little more seriously. He sleeps through English."

"Niou sleeps through _most_ of his classes, and expects me to share my notes. And then wanders around all day looking like he's just woken up, because he _has_."

Tezuka pressed his hands together in his lap. "Echizen won't even take off his cap _indoors_."

Yagyuu raised an eyebrow. "Never mind being sloppy - doesn't he know it's rude?"

"I've told him, but he doesn't seem to care." He hesitated. "He's also taken to raiding my closet. As you've seen." He gestured at the brown paper bag.

The Rikkai senior nodded in agreement. "Niou steals entire outfits. He's even taken some of my underwear."

Tezuka stiffened at that. "Really?"

Yagyuu took another sip, only to find the cup empty. He returned it to the saucer. "We're at least the same size. Discovering that Echizen raids your closet as well was a surprise."

"I feel grateful after hearing that Niou steals your _underwear_," Tezuka said seriously. He seemed distressed.

The Rikkai senior folded his arms, glasses glinting in the café's warm lighting. "It occurs to me, Tezuka, that perhaps we should turn the tables on them."

"How so?"

"Teach them a lesson. It's unfair that our drawers are raided to their amusement. That sort of relationship isn't equal at all."

"You're suggesting…?"

"Turnabout is fair play."

"You want me to steal Echizen's underwear," he stated flatly.

"And I'll steal Niou's, of course." Yagyuu's smile was positively frosty.

Tezuka remained silent while he finished the last of his tea. "I see. That is what this is about then."

The Rikkai senior's eyebrows rose slightly. "What do you mean?"

"Yagyuu, excuse me for asking… but are you aware that you seem to have grown a white rat-tail from the back of your head?"

Yagyuu's eyes bugged out, and he reached for his neck. "What?! No way, I made absolutely sure it would stay in-"

He paused as his fingers groped air. The crease between Tezuka's eyebrows darkened.

There was no escaping it now, not after that reaction. "Damn, you caught me." And with such an old trick.

He grinned, dragging the wig from his head. A quick swipe of a thumb removed the concealer from his mole, the fake glasses were snapped shut and slid into his pocket, then Niou Masaharu was sitting there in his true form.

"I have to admit, you're pretty good. How long did it take you to figure it out?"

Tezuka folded his arms. "To be honest, I'm afraid I had the advantage right from the beginning."

Niou frowned. "Whaddya mean?"

Hands quickly flattened the slightly curled hair, the frameless glasses were deftly swapped with an oval pair identical to the fakes Niou had been wearing before, and lastly, the almost permanent frown smoothed to a vaguely aloof expression.

All in all, it was a far less complicated procedure than what Niou had to go through. Yagyuu Hiroshi now sat where Tezuka Kunimitsu had been not moments before.

"Well, _fuck_," Niou drawled, tossing the brown wig to the side. "What was even the point then?"

………………

At the McDonalds four blocks away, Echizen Ryoma fiddled with the buttons on a mobile phone. The senior next to him held out his hand expectantly, but the freshman just looked at it as though perplexed before eventually handing him a napkin.

"The _phone_, Echizen. Give it back."

"Don't want to," he retorted stubbornly. His eyes lit up when the phone buzzed in his grip. Tezuka made a half-hearted grab for the mobile that the freshman easily ducked.

The message was short and simple. _'Thanks for your assistance, 'Tezuka'. It appears that we both need to keep better track of our belongings.'_

Ryoma's lips curled into a faint smirk.

"It's rude to read other people's mail," Tezuka admonished, though he didn't sound quite as annoyed as he ought to. That might have been because Ryoma had placed his free hand on his knee, which always distracted the captain spectacularly.

"It was just spam anyway," the freshman replied in a bored tone, then clicked 'delete message' and emptied the trashcan. It seemed that Niou still had lots more to work on.


End file.
